-r 



Til 



ISrOTES 



UNITED STATES 



THEIR NATURE, POSITION, AIMS AND WANTS. 



"Is there any such happhiess as for a man's mind to be raised above the confusion of things, 
where he may have the prospect of the order of nature '! " 

"Are we the richer, by one poor invention, by reason of all the learning that hath been these 
many hundred years ? " 



/ 

BY S. EDWAED WARREK C. E., 

Prop, or Desckiptive Geometry, etc. in the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and 
Graduate of the same. (Class of '51.) 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN WILEY AND SON, 535 BROADWAY. 

1866. 









W. SCRIBNER, PRINTER, CANNON PLACE, TROT, N. T. 




PREFATORY NOTE. 



These unpretending pages, put forth in advance of a possible fuller 
treatment of their subject, are an attempt to respond, even if but very 
briefly, and provisionally, to much earnest inquiry concerning the true 
nature, position, and aims of Polytechnic Schools ; and to the evident 
immediate need of correct popular information relative to them. It is 
hoped that they may also contribute to unity of sentiment and action, 
both among their friends in the comm.unity at large, especially their 
alumni, and among their officers and thoughtful and earnest members. 
That the need just alluded to exists, is not surprising. The whole class of 
Polytechnic — otherwise called Scientific, Technical, Technological, or 
Industrial — Schools is of modern origin everywhere, and in this country, 
comparatively unique. Hence misapprehension of their true nature and 
grade, and consequent legitimate mode of administration, not unnaturally 
arises, on slight misleading occasions. 

For statements of facts, we have relied on official publications, corres- 
pondence, and standard educational literature, without, however, inter- 
rupting the reader by continual foot note references to them. The 
statistics of the concluding section are mainly abridged from the valuable 
report on the reorganization and proposed development of the Rensselaer 
Polytechnic Institute, prepared in 1855, by the then Director.* We 
have been unable, in the short time which could be spared for recording 
these notes, to hunt up many later or fuller authorities. 

January, 1866. 



* B. Franklin Greene, A. M., C. E. 



NOTES ON POLYTECHNIC SCHOOLS, 



I. 

|t pfet 0f ^Mth gtlmb in tlu tlirfte I f tMiis, 
Witt §rief i»jilaiwt0rn §um. 



It will be convenient to present, first, in these notes, a list of 
the existing "Scientific Departments" and Technical Schools 
in the United States, so far as they are known to the writer. 

In reference to the first section of the following table, it 
should be understood that it embraces those schools, whose 
character as truly distinct professional schools, is most ajDparent. 
This distinctive character is more or less obscured in the case 
of the schools named in the second part of the table, owing to 
their comparativehj undeveloped condition, so far as now known,, 
or else to their being merged in the general courses of the institu- 
tutions including them. Hence it has been impossible to 
arrange them in the same list with those of the first section, in 
the order of definite dates of beginning. 

The familiar professional schools — Theological, Medical and 
Legal — are, as is well known, sometimes separate institutions, 
and sometimes, attached to colleges. The same is true of Sci- 
entific Professional Schools. Hence, in any case where the 
name does not indicate the fact, the first column of the table 
shows the condition, in this respect, of each school mentioned. 



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SE]OTIOn>T II. 



FOUNDED IN : ATTENDANCE. 



Brown University. DepH. 

of Chemistry and Engineering, Providence, R. I. 
New York Free Academy, N. Y. City, 1853, 

Brooklyn Collegiate and 

Polytechnic Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y., 1855, 

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Dep't. of Mines, Arts and Manu- 
factures. 
Washington College. Lexington, Va. 1866. 

Dep't. of Practical Mechanics. 



Some of the institutions named in the foregoing table, are 
characterized by distinctive features, so marked and peculiar, 
that a brief mention of them is added, so far as it may favor a 
fuller understanding of the table. It is, however, as foreign to 
our purpose, as to our place, to offer critical notices, or enter 
into comparisons, at least in case of actually existing institu- 
tions. 

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is distinguished as 
the pioneer of its class in this country. At first, more known 
as a school of Technical Natural Science, than of late years ; 
its present character, to which it owes so much of its pres- 
tige, was impressed upon it during a transition period of 
about five years, beginning in 1S49. If it be added that, until 
within a very brief period, it stood alone in respect to the 
extent and elevation of its curriculum, it is saying no more 
than ought to be true of the senior institution. The assertion 
is also justified by the facts : first, that most of its graduates, 
of late years, have required the full four years for the comple- 
tion of their course of study ; and second, that, nevertheless, 



the average age of its first year men, or "Division D," has 
been from one to two years above the minimum age (sixteen) for 
admission, while the average age of its present second year 
men, or "Division C," of over fifty members, is scarcely less 
than three years above its corresponding minimum required age, 
(seventeen). 

The Sheffield Scientific School is in part characterized 
by its connection with Yale College, which has long been a 
distinguislied home for the culture of the Natural Sciences. 

The Lawrence Scientific School possesses a distinctive 
peculiarity of organization, by whicli limited fields of study 
are marked out as departments, which are kept so far distinct, 
that separate arrangements, as to tuition fees and times of 
instruction, are required for each. 

The Cooper Union is distinguished by its character as a 
most noble charity, bright, it is not too much to say, in the 
constellation of the world's best charities — charities of that 
nature that it is no humiliation at all, but a high honor, to be 
intelligent and appreciative recipients of them- — inasmuch as it 
acts, in an elevated sphere, on the sound principle of co-opera- 
tion, uniting its benignly facilitating aids to progress, with the 
worthy efforts of those " who carry weight in life." 

We cannot here stop to give statistics of its practical work- 
ings, since they are duly stated in its reports. 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is remarka- 
ble for the comprehensiveness, and large scale, of its organiza- 
tion. It embraces three grand divisions : A Society of Arts, 
in several sections, each devoted to a specific subject of 
theoretical or practical inquiry ; and working on such a scale, 
as to furnish motive power for use in exhibiting the action of 
full sized mechanical inventions ; a Museum of Arts, analagous 
to the Paris "Conservatory of Arts and Trades," and a School of 
Technology, in six divisions, as seen in the table, and marked, as 
it would seem, by a purpose to test the extent to which instruc- 



10 

tion, in exact science, can be effectively given, by lectures, on 
the basis of sixteen years of age, and an academy preparation, 
as the minimum of age and training required for admission. 

This institution also has a notable collateral feature, in its 
system of free evening instruction to intelligent and earnest 
artizans of both sexes, given in Boston by joint arrangement 
with the " Lowell Institute." 

The Worcester County Industrial Institute has a quite 
unique feature, in its unusual proposed provision for the prac- 
tical study of mechanism. It contemplates nothing less than 
what might be called a Lahoratory of Mechanism, to consist of 
a well appointed machine shop, with power, machines and 
tools ; in which the special student of mechanical engineering 
can find a counterpart to the Chemical Laboratory of the indus- 
trial chemist ; the Physical Laboratory of the professional 
student of physics, (optics, telegraphy, etc.) ; the Metallurgic 
Laboratory of the student of mining, and the Mechanical 
Laboratory (for testing materials, truss combinations, etc.,) of 
the student of civil engineering. 

The Cornell University — to embrace a school of agricul- 
ture and the mechanic arts, as a condition of its claim to the 
share of New York in the national public land grant to the 
states for the endowment of agricultural colleges therein, con- 
templated in the law of July, 1862 — stands with few or no 
rivals in the magnitude of its moneyed and landed endowments, 
The former, including the grand donation of the State Senator, 
whose name it bears, with the proceeds of the national land 
grant, amounts, it has been stated, in round numbers, to one 
and a half millions of dollars; and its grounds are required, by 
the incorporating act, to contain not less than tw^o hundred 
acres. The same act allows it to hold an aggregate property 
not exceeding three millions of dollars. 

When it is considered that there is a limit, fast approaching, 
to the most useful number of such institutions for a given pop- 
ulation, having reference, we mean, to the full development of 
these technological schools, it is most earnestly to be hoped 



11 

that the organization of this institution will be distinguished 
by unit}^ breadth, and comprehensiveness of design, so that, if 
built up in successive parts, each part shall fall into its fit place 
as a component of a predetermined organic whole. The 
opportunity, afforded by its resources, for realizing the ideal of 
an essentially complete Polytechnic University, is too fair to 
pass without the most studious and assiduous endeavors to 
improve it. 

In most just, though sad, contrast with the preceding bright 
array of the crowns of freedom, there appears the shadow of 
the so called University of the South, at Seivanee, Tenn. This 
proposed institution has met the fate, due to the representative 
educational head of a frustrated attempt to upbuild the collos- 
sal barbarism of a political and social state, on the foundation 
of a legalized dehumanization of an amiable, docile, and capa- 
ble race of the fellow men of the members of that state ; a 
state, which, besides being, as respects humane civilization, 
barbarous, was, in the face of the nineteenth century of chris- 
tian civilization, a vast organized practical blasphemy. 

Having an offensive dash of haughty sectionalism in its very 
name, which was, doubtless, significant, this University was, as 
exhibited in its constitution and statutes, largely pervaded by 
the sectional spirit of oligarchy and autocracy. It even made 
a provision, so revolting to a worthy and justly high minded 
professorial corps, for a counterpart to a plantation overseer, in 
the person of an officer who was to have very much such dis- 
ciplinary power over the Faculty ! ! as the latter should, if at 
all worthy of their places, have over the immature, or readily 
misled, youths committed to their (should be) cherishing care. 
But, in this provision, we only see the form assumed in the 
field of higher education, by that inextinguishable subtle spirit 
of disesteemfor labor, even so elevated as that of the professorial 
chair — if only it be useful labor — a spirit which is the neces- 
sarily blasting accompaniment of a system of bond labor. 

In its ambitiously inflated organization, this institution was 
but a confused collection of no less than thirty-two separate 
schools, so called, some relating only to single, general subjects 



12 

of stady, as Physics ; others, to comprehensive departments of 
professional knowledge, as Law, or Engineering, each properly 
embracing a circle of such general subjects. 

We spoke of the above University as having met with a 
destroying fate. It is reported that its very foundations were 
carried away piecemeal, as relics, by the armies of National 
Unity, Broad Humanity, and Emancipated Industry. Let us 
hope, however, that when, in due time, the spade, the loom, 
the press, and the free school, as secular instruments of free, 
christianized humanity, shall have done their regenerating 
work, this institution will reseat itself on its mountain estate 
of eight thousand acres, as a powerful centre of humane, polite, 
and industrial culture. 



II. 

Sti inn ®iiiati03]iHl ^bm, mi 



1. Educational Plane. Systematic edacation, or the or- 
derly development of the powers of the human mind, by the 
aggregate of methods and appliances employed in school in- 
struction, exists in four grades, viz : 

Rudimentary, 

JElementary, 

General, or '■'■Liberal,''^ 

Technical, or " ProfessionaV^ 

These grades, or successive stages, are, moreover, natural and 
not artificial, since each has its peculiar, and strongly marked, 
defining characteristic. Neglecting, here, their recognized 
varieties and subdivisions, they may be defined as follows : 

1. Faidhnentary Education. — This is the germ, embracing 
the alphabet ; reading, of merely narrative or declarative 
sentences, of the simplest kinds, about the commonest things ; 
writing, of detached letters, or their mere elements ; singing, 
by the ear ; observation, of common things ; arithmetic, of 
operations on small whole numbers, so small as to be realised 
in thought. 

2. Elementary Education. — This initiates the mind into the 
beginnings of the use of the keys of knowledge. It opens to 
view, and teaches. Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, Composi- 
tion, Domestic and Neighborhood Morals. Indeed, it acquaints 



14 

the mind with the elements of the many branches of knowl- 
edge, as pursued in Grammar and High Schools, and the 
equivalent private schools. 

3. General Education. — This begins, when the mind has 
so far developed as to have an original, free, love for knowl- 
edge, and becomes conscious of individual intellectual, artistic, 
or moral tastes of its own. This education, it is the character- 
istic office and aim of the college to afford. These institutions 
give, to the awakened, eager and active mind, facilities for 
gaining a comprehensive view, as from a hill top, of the whole 
field of knowledge. They also labor to secure for their mem- 
bers such a degree of acquaintance with the various mathe- 
matical, physical, philosophical, and classical studies, together 
with invigorating practice, by composition and declamation, in 
the enlarged use of written and spoken language — such a 
degree, we say, of all this, as qualifies the mind, thus " liberally" 
trained, to choose which select group of studies it will after- 
wards more fully pursue to a practical end. 

4. Professional Education. — This, when found in the most 
favorable condition, is planted in, and grows out of, the well 
prepared soil of liberal general culture just described ; or, to 
change the figure, it is eVected upon that as a broad and sub- 
stantial basis. Its office and aim is, to give the due, full, and 
exact training, necessary for qualifying one for that successful 
and honorable professional practice, in which trained and culti- 
vated intelligence is the prime agent in the mere gaining of a 
livelihood, but, better, in the life work of making a sensible 
contribution to the commonwealth. 

By now comparing the professed objects and actual results, 
of at least the more well develo|)ed, of the institutions named 
in the table, with the foregoing principles, we learn, that, at 
least in their two or three upper years, they are strictly and 
fully professional schools. For Civil, Mechanical, Topographi- 
cal, and Mining Engineering, Physical and Chemical Technol- 
ogy, and Architecture, are not taught in them merely to 
discipline the mind, or to qualify one to participate in the 



]-5 

intercourse of polite society, though, together with previous 
general culture, they should richly contribute towards accom- 
plishing these elevated and most desirable objects. These 
great subjects are taught, principally, as elevated scientific 
practical professions, that is, as means of gaining ample and 
honorable support, and of ennobling the state, by the applica- 
tion of fruitful principles of science, to the beneficent arts of 
peace. 

Summarily, the end of College education is the discipline of 
the mental faculties, as working forces. That of Professional 
education is the endowment of the already fairly disciplined 
faculties, with the principles of exact science and applied 
learning, considered as instruments of higher, productive and 
physically, socially, and morally, conservative, industry. 

Going through this, or any land, ^vith these determining 
definitions in hand, there would be no difficulty in distin- 
guishing its professional schools, of every name and kind, or 
however disguised by unfamiliar names, or other irrelevant 
particulars. 

But to present the Polytechnic class of professional schools 
as in the focus of vision, a distinction must be explained. 

Science is suhjective, relating to man himself, his physical and 
spiritual constitution; and objective, relating to all external 
nature. In the former, lies the foundation of the ancient profes- 
sions of Medicine, Law, Divinity, and Polite Literature as a Fine 
Art. In the latter region of science, lies the foundation for the 
distinctively modern technological professions of Engineering, 
Applied Physics and Chemistry and Natural History, and the 
material fine arts, of Architecture, Music, etc. 

Schools, then, alike truly professional, and equal in dignity, 
as determined by either of three decisive tests, viz : The talent 
demanded by them, the extent and elevation of their courses of 
study, or the magnitude and beneficence of their results, stand in 
two distinct groups, appropriately distinguished as Humanistic, 
or Polytechnic, according as their chosen scientific field is 
subjective, or objective ; relating to Man iii himself considered, 
or to External Nature as able to be richly tributary to man. 



16 

In case of any to whom the previous statements and conclu- 
sions of this section are new, and who hesitate about accepting 
them till reassured b}^ the argument from competent testimony, 
it may be sufficient to refer them to the official publications of 
such high and well established institutions as Harvard and Yale 
Colleges, or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The two former, in that 
simple, matter of course way, which is the strongest form of 
assertion, as if the question admitted of no dispute, speak of 
their scientific departments, as professional, equally with their 
other professional departments. The latter uniformly assume, 
as a thing everywhere understood by the well informed, that 
their courses are pi'ofessional ones, in the full sense. And 
numerous other scientific institutions, both the detached class, 
and those which form professional departments of colleges, do 
the same. This question, then, of the grade of Schools of 
Technology, may therefore, it is to be hoped, be considered as 
finally settled. 

9. Methods of Instruction. From a different point of 
view than the one here occupied, this topic might justly claim 
a full section, or even a separate treatise. But it serves our 
present purpose to mention it here but briefly. 

The method of instruction in the old professional schools, is 
largely that of lectures. Hence, some seem to be ambitious to 
have the same method prevail in polytechnic professional 
schools also. But we think the connection between the two 
things — the grade of the school, and the method of -teaching — 
is mostly arbitrary, and that the methods of teaching are prop- 
erly dependent, rather, upon the nature of the subjects taught. 
Now it is well known, or may be readily understood, that all 
knowledge of mathematical subjects must necessarily be exact, 
or worthless. Hence, a point lost, or misunderstood, in a mathe- 
matical lecture, may occasion hours of discouraging perplexity, 
and annoying possibilities of one's entire work in writing up 
the lecture being vitiated. Therefore, we would restrict 
lecture instruction to descriptive subjects, in which an error 



17 

does not vitiate the whole ; and to experimental subjects, which 
address themselves largely to the senses ; and to mathematical 
subjects, only in case of comparatively mature, and considerably 
proficient, students of them. 

Nor do we think tliat instruction loses anything of freshness 
and interest — very important elements, most truly — by this 
method. For, in studying from a text book on exact science, 
the student has the pleasing certainty that he has a reliable 
authority to work on, and from ; then annotations and 
reductions of his own, familiar expositions and supplementary 
notes by the professor, and, in case of Descriptive Geometry, 
exhibition of curious special cases, and of models, with 
informal expositions, will, altogether, maintain due interest 
among those in whom any method would enlist earnest effort. 
We only care, now, to add to the above the bare statement 
of the methods of polytechnic instruction, viz : 
Formal lectures. 

Familiar expositions, in part conversational. 
Interrogations and Black Board demonstrations. 
Practical exercises in Geodesy, Astronomy, Physics, Chem- 
istry, Botany, Geology, Graphics, and Mathematical and Me- 
chanical problems, etc. 

Excursions, for inspection, sketching, etc. 
, Systematic Reviews. 

Oral and written examinations. 

A notice of methods of instruction may, however, embrace a 
few words about professorial and tutorial functions, and the 
hours of daily duty of teachers and students. 

A professor, properly and distinctively so called, makes 
some extensive subject a field for continued research, either 
with a view to enlarging the area of existing knowledge with 
respect to it, or the bounds of it as actually taught in the 
place of his chosen labors. He also is the responsible head of 
his own department of instruction, and gives instruction per- 
sonally, in the higher subjects of his department, and through 
assistants in its more elementary portions, taking care to duly 
superintend the matter and manner of their instructions. 



18 

The importance of providing such amount and competency 
of assistance as will relieve a professor from being merely a 
tutor, ending the year, so far as advancement of his depart- 
ment is conL-erned, just as he began it, is clearly recognized 
by higher educators, and in the practice of liberally managed 
institutions, since hardly anything conduces more to their 
vigorous life and growth, than due provision for professorial 
research, in behalf of increased and remodelled matter, and 
methods, of instruction. 

As to daily labor in polytechnic schools, we believe it true 
that they are quite generally understood not to be abodes of 
luxurious ease, or dissipated idleness. Rather they are designed 
to correspond to the most approved mechanical motors built by 
their professional graduates, in yielding the largest percentage 
of useful result in a given time. It is definitely stated, that 
in the Central School of Arts and Manufactures, at Paris, eight 
and a half hours in the school, and four more in his room, is 
the daily standard of student's work ; and similar information 
is in our possession relative to other European schools. Let us 
see what an exhibit, for the performance of the human engine, 
can be made on this basis. Eight hours for sleep, an hour and 
a half for dinner, and an hour for each of the two other meals, 
including healthful repose, or light pastimes, makes eleven and 
a half hours, leaving the twelve hours and a half for worl^. 
Now in these hours, mind and body labor conjointly. In some 
practical exercises, as in a good deal of Laboratory and Draw- 
ing Room practice, and in Engineering Field Work, the activity 
is largely physical, and in the latter case, as well as in out 
door pursuit of any department of Natural History, is highly 
pleasant and invigorating. Also in all practical exercises under 
instruction, and attendance on the more informal expositions of 
the instructor, there is a subdued play of the kindly social 
element, which is by no means to be overlooked in its lubrica- 
ting influence upon the workings of school mechanism. So 
that the purely mental activity of the twelve and a half hours, 
reduced to its equivalent of close study, would probably not 
average half that time, or more than six hours daily, which 



19 

was about the standard approved by Sir Walter Scott, when at 
the height, equally, of his health and his success. 

There would seern, therefore, to be no difficulty in realizing 
the preceding programme, tempered too, by a half or whole 
secular day's absence of prescribed exercises, and the inviolable 
Sunday privilege of rest, and opportunities for self-adjustment 
and accumulation of moral power — if life be not clogged with 
surfeit, like a locomotive choked with afire-box filled solid with 
coal dust — if it be not wasted by vice, like the locomotive with 
inly corroded boiler, that can hold but faint working pressure — 
if it be not consumed by destroying excitements or stimulants, 
like the boiler through whose flues, uncovered with water, the 
fire rages with unnatural heat. 

Modern civilization is bound to justify itself by producing 
a more perfect type of symmetrically developed manhood than 
before appeared, and the polytechnic school, as a favorite son 
of that civilization, is bound to exhibit in the sustained activity 
of its members, a higher percentage of effective work, than any 
other organization can show. 



III. 



1, Nomenclature, a. — General Nomenclature. — To treat this 
topic clearly, settled definitions, if possible, must be given to 
certain educational terms, which are well known to be popu- 
larly used in a very loose manner. 

First. " College.'' Turning from the dictionary to an encyclo- 
pcedia, for fuller standard information, we find a college, in its 
primary meaning, to be a union of persons, having " like powers, 
privileges, and customs, in one office, for a common end." Thus 
the phrase, " College of the Apostles," is in use to this day, 
and in the ancient Roman Stnte, trade associations, as of 
carpenters, bakers, etc., etc., were called colleges. 

Again, all through the middle ages, and to the present 
time, various protective, administrative, judicial, elective, and 
religious bodies were, and are, called colleges. Thus, there 
was, perhaps is, the poor men's decent burial college; the Russian 
^'■college of general superintendence," (of benevolent institu- 
tions), the ^^ college of justice," or supreme court, of Scotland ; 
the United States college of presidential electors, etc. 

Lastly, and chiefly, the word " college," in connection with 
higher education, has a curious history. In that revival of 
learning, which occurred in the 13th century, celebrated 
lecturers drew eager crowds of youths to their lecture halls, 
and special buildings, under proper superintendence, were 
provided for their meals and lodgings. These were the original 



colleges, mere endowed students' hotels, both in England and 
on the continent. These, sooner or later, became transformed 
into places of instruction, including the lecture rooms within 
them, and each possessing a faculty of instruction, so that now 
a " commons," or general eating room, in a college, is the' 
dying relic of what the entire college originally was. 

The name of college is seldom applied to professional 
schools, though Medical Schools, and these only, if we are not 
mistaken, sometimes call themselves Medical Colleges, also the 
table in Section I., presents one Polytechnic School called a, 
college. But, in either case, it is not to be inferred, that such 
schools stand on the same educational plane with true classical 
colleges, or are conducted on merely college principles. 

Our limits forbid the introduction of much interesting matter 
under this head, which may be found in reports, or papers, on 
superior education. 

Second. •' University.'''' This word, like " college," had; 
originally, no reference to an institution of learning, but only 
to corporations, who may have preferred this title to that of 
" college," merely to express the completeness of their organi- 
zation, or the miiversality with which it embraced all, fitted to 
belong to it. Thus there were, in ancient Rome, " universities" 
of tailors, etc. 

The word became a term in education, in the 13th century, 
and did so because it expressed the idea of a corporation, such 
as was formed by an organized body of teachers. It was 
always, as now, a term of superior dignity, meaning an institu- 
tion, or corporation, existing for purposes of higher instruction. 
There were many of these universities in Europe, in the middle 
ages, of which the first was at Paris, giving instruction in Law, 
Medicine, Divinity, and in what was then called the Arts, 
meaning the literature and meagre theoretical science of the 
ancients. And, as already described, colleges were nothing 
more than the hotels of the students at those miiversities. 

Finally, at the present time, the term university is used in 
various senses, some having no definite meaning. First. — The 
German, or continental, sense, of a school superior to modern 



22 

colleges — called in Germany, gymnasia — in which any single 
subject, or department, of general science, can be pursued 
to any extent desired by the student. 

Second. — The general English sense, of corporate institutions, 
intended for purposes of instruction, and surrounded by colleges, 
as incorporated and endowed lodging places ; but to which the 
university has quite abandoned the work of instruction. Thus 
the university is a blank form, and the colleges have advanced 
from merely, each, giving instruction in some one or two 
branches, to the rank of competitors, with each other, in giving 
an entire collegiate course, mostly under tutorial instruction, 
for an academic degree, or a professional degree, in the old 
professions. Efforts liave been made, however, to reform the 
English Universities in this respect. 

Third. — The new and special English sense, of a senate of 
eminent scholars, with its boards of examiners, called collect- 
ively, the University of London. Students from all the other 
colleges and universities in England, or its colonies, dissenting 
or otherwise, can obtain degrees from it, by passing its exami- 
nations. 

Fourth. — The popular American sense, so far as there is a 
definite one, tends, perhaps, to associate the terra university 
with those institutions which embrace in their design, or actual 
operation, a circle of professional schools, successive to the 
collegiate course as, in part at least, their common foundation. 
Yet, on the one hand, some institutions, of the highest char- 
acter, in this country, are merely called colleges ; and on the 
other, some, hardly superior to a New England city high 
school, style themselves universities. 

Fifth. — There are, in addition, two American special uses, 
of the term " university." First, as applied to State univer- 
sities, like that of Michigan, which form, each, the crowning 
member of a state educative structure, whose foundation is the 
state common school system. The University of Michigan is a 
favorable example of these universities, having two parallel 
collegiate courses, of four years each, one classical, the other 
largely scientific, and both succeeded by professional courses, 



23 

in Law, Medicine, Chemical Technology, Civil and Mining 
Engineering, aided by ample and varied cabinets, etc. Second. 
There is the so called University of the SUte of Nevs^ York, 
giving no instruction, but embracing a board of regents, to 
whom all the academies, colleges, and professional schools, 
make annual reports — including some meteorological observa- 
tions — as a condition for receiving their respective shares of 
the "literature fund" of the State. 

Among and, in part, better than all these numerous, and 
partly confused senses of the term university, the following 
might be adopted as a standard one, due to the historic, as well 
as essential, dignity of the term, viz : A university is an insti- 
tution for instruction, in which, besides professional instruction 
in one of the two grand divisions of professional schools, 
humanistic, or polytechnic, (p. 15) provision should be made 
for carrying those, who have time, means, and inclination for 
being students for life, through a course as extended as the 
existing resources of human knowledge will permit. Also such 
institutions may properly include a foundation general, or col- 
legiate course, congruous, in each case, with their distinctive 
professional courses. 

Third. ^'•Academy.'''' — This word originally meant only a 
public park in the city of Athens, where Socrates and his chief 
pupil, Plato, imparted instruction, in their pagan philosophy, 
to Athenian youth, assembled in its groves. The disciples of 
Plato were called Academists, and each, on opening a school of 
his own, called it an academy. 

At present, the term "academy" has three applications. 
First, to a school, usually private, of about the same grade as 
any city public high school, and intermediate between the 
grammar school and the college, as the latter is, between the 
academy and the professional school. Second, to Government 
Military and Naval schools. Third, to associations of men, 
eminent in any one or more departments of general or profes- 
sional knowledge, or art. Tliese are found in all civilized 
nations, the most celebrated being the five conjoint academies 
of France, unitedly composing the Imperial Institute of France. 



24 

Tliese are the French Academy, the Academy of inscriptions 
and polite literature, the Academy of sciences, the Academy 
of fine arts, and the Academy of moral and political science. 

Fourth. " Institute.'''' — This, also, is a name of very broad 
application, meaning anything instituted, i. e. set in place, 
whether, a custom, or a book, or a school, or association of any 
grade. Nothing can be inferred from this name, of the grade 
of a school of learning, or association, adopting it, as these 
range all the way from boys' boarding schools, up to the unri- 
valled Institute of France, just mentioned. 

Fifth. " ScliooV — This is by far the broadest, or most 
generic, of all these educational terms, being merely any 
aggregation of appliances, systematic or not, organized or not, 
which, intentionally or not, act to develope, either well or ill, 
the human being. Thus, human life is truly a school. Nature 
is a school. So, too, particular forms and spheres of life, as 
street life, workshop life, and business life, are schools. Asso- 
ciated opinion, as general public opinion, or sectarian opinions, 
are schools, and the adherents to such opinions, are, themselves, 
collectively called schools. Thus we have schools in politics, 
in theology, in medicine, in art. Also the term school applies 
to the whole range of express institutions of instruction, from 
the humblest primary, to the highest professional one. 

More exactly, now, a school is any educational organization, 
complete in itself, whether existing independently ; or, as a 
component unit in some more comprehensive organization. 
Thus, there are medical and other professional schools, separate 
from any college, and there are like schools attached to colleges 
as their basis. In the latter case, by reference to catalogues, 
"we shall find, first, the general faculty of the whole institution, 
considered as a compound unit ; then, separate lesser, but 
complete, "faculties" of the component professional schools. 
With reference, next, to the adoption of " school " as the title 
of the institutions devoted to the last and crowning stage of 
systematic education under tuition, that is, to professional edu- 
cation, there is a beautiful ground of its propriety. Stated 



abstractly, as a general principle, it is this : It is quite beyond 
the capacity of any sounding title to reflect honor upon, or 
exhibit the honor of, the highest ideas and objects, so that the 
latter, being self-sufficient, rejoice in the simplest and honaeliest 
names. "Home" is better, every \ ^y\, than "paternal man- 
sion ; " the " evening star," than th^RBOcturnal luminary;" 
my " love," than my " most distinguished consideration ; " 
" teacher," than "professor;" and " school," than "academy," 
"institute," or "seminary." 

This really familiar principle is very generally acted on, in 
naming professional Institutions, which are almost invariably 
called schools, both separately and collectively, as Law Schools, 
Scientific Schools, Theological Schools, etc. The name of 
school is adopted then, although the simplest, yet as really the 
highest, because, as above shown, the most generic. The 
descriptive epithet added, as Polytechnic School, marks both 
its sphere and grade. This, however, when but a single pro- 
fessional coi^rse is given. Each course leading to a degree, 
demands its special school, and the term Institute, is especially 
recommended, by frequent continental European practice, as 
the general title of the organization. 

Sixth. — Without making separate heads for the following, a 
" department," as distinguished from a " school," and as a branch 
of a comprehensive institution, might be defined as not being 
subject to a special faculty, complete in itself, included within 
the general faculty, as before described in defining a school, 
though it must be confessed, that this definition has exceptions 
in actual usage. In Germany, when " school " is the general 
name, " departments " are often called " sections." Lastly, 
" seminary " is not the name of a different kind of institution 
from those bearing any of the preceding names, but merely a 
different name for the same thing, a name based on the idea of 
a school as a place for the dissemination, or seed sowing, of 
knowledge. Divinity schools, especially, for instance, style 
themselves indifferently, "schools," "institutes," "seminaries," 
or " departments." 
4 



26 

h. — Professorship Nomenclature. — The Chief of internal ad- 
ministration in higher institutions is variously styled, President, 
Chancellor, Rector, Provost, Director, etc. Tlie last term is 
appropriate to polytechnic schools, as conformed to continental 
usage, and as in accordance with the desirable features of 
essential nnity of administration, and an executive organi- 
zation of chief and associates, analogous to that of a civil chief 
and his cabinet, or a state governor and council — the chief, in 
all such cases, having due authority to act singly, in emergencies 
demanding power and promptitude. But we had more particu- 
larly in mind, that very important feature of true department 
nomenclature, which duly expresses the fact that each of the 
scientific professions has large component parts, each forming 
matter for a full professorship. Thus, Ci"vil Engineering em- 
braces, as necessary and fundamental to it. Mathematics, 
Physics, Analytical Mechanics, Geodesy, and Descriptive Ge- 
ometry, or the Science of Form, with its applications. 
Now when the separate chairs in a Divinity school, a Law 
School, or a Medical School, can be consolidated in one ; or, 
when one man can give duly elevated and extended courses 
of instruction in the five foregoing departments of knowledge, 
then, and not before, will the phrase " professor of civil 
engineering " and the enumeration of " civil engineering," as a 
simple element of a programme of study, co-ordinate with 
other single studies, as History, Geology, Mechanics, Drawing, 
etc., cease to be absolutely ridiculous. This assertion, is, of 
course, no intended reflection upon those who act under such a 
nomenclature, since they find it ready made for them, and, 
very likely, tolerable only as a provisional concession to popular 
misapprehension of the real constituent parts of engineering 
science. 

According to the misapprehension alluded to, civil engineer- 
ing is about equivalent to geodesy, which is only one of its 
subordinate components. For the end of geodesy, relative to 
engineering, is the instrumental determination of field data, as a 
basis for the proper designing of tvorJcs, which last requires an 
extended knowledge of Mathematics, Technical Physics, 



27 

(strength of materials, etc.,) and Mechanics; and, then, the 
intelligible representation of worJcs, whatever their complexity, 
and in all their details, by an application of the principles of 
Descriptive Geometry. Hence, in no continental polytechnic 
programme, that we have yet heard of, can be found any such 
anomalous expression as " professorship of civil engineering," 
or any analogous nomenclature. 

c. — Class Nomenclature. — Turning next, for a moment, to 
class nomenclature, we find the numerical system (1st, 2nd, 
etc., classes) in general use in all lower schools. In colleges, 
the titles " Freshmen," " Sophomores," " Juniors," and "Sen- 
iors," are doubtless unalterable, and well enough so. In some 
professional schools, classes are designated in partial repetition 
of the college nomenclature, as "Junior," "Middle," and 
" Senior," in three year courses, or Junior and Senior in tivo 
year courses, such as are usual in Law and Medical Schools. 
In others, the mere terms " First year," " Second year," etc., 
indicate the classes. 

In the case of professional schools, having a four years' course, 
as in two of the polytechnic schools named in the Table, (p. 6), 
there are manifest objections to a mere repetition of the college 
nomenclature ; since the entering member of any professional 
school, whatever his previous studies may have been, stands in 
a scholastic position four years in advance of the college, " fresh- 
man," and probably does not propose to become, or be regarded 
as, a freshman a second time, after such an interval. Assuming, 
then, that the polytechnic variety of professional schools may 
reasonably have some distinguishing badge, in its class nomen- 
clature, there is reserved for these schools the alphabetical 
system, adopted by the Eensselaer Polytechnic Institute, also 
by the Cooper Union (p. 9), for the classes in the five year 
course of its night school. Only, in the former case, the badge 
is one of total distinction, the classes, being styled " Divisions" — 
" Division A" (the highest), etc. ; while in the Cooper Union, 
a badge of union with the entire fraternity of educational insti- 
tutions, together with a duly distinctive nomenclature, is found 
in the retention of the universally employed word " class " — its 



28 

classes, above mentioned, being Class E (the lowest), etc. ; a 
very good system, we think, and worthy of general adoption 
by Technical Schools. 

II. Spirit. — Passing to the Spirit of Pol/ftechnic ScJiools, it 
should, in common with that of other professional schools, 
above all things, not be in any degree a weight upon the neck 
of the local civilization where it exists, but itself a centre of 
refinement, no less in its grounds and other material appoint- 
ments, than in the life of all its members, and in that of its 
officers. The fundamental social, and moral, qualification — no 
less important than scholastic ones — for membership in a pro- 
fessional school, as such, is, possession of both ability and dispo- 
sition, to act steadfastly in the spirit of a man — of a young man, 
by all means, but still of a man — ready to be governed by the 
laws of the land, and by the equally inviolable, though unwrit- 
ten, laws of social propriety, and of honorable professional life. 

Again, in colleges, the unwilling attendance, perhaps, of 
some, and the absence of any definite high aims on the part of 
others, and tlie varied ultimate aims of most, tend to disunite 
their members, and the existence of secret societies tends, one 
would suppose, still further to narrow and hedge in a spirit of 
broad fraternity. But in a professional school, the tinity of aim 
of all its members, at least of all who contemplate taking the 
same degree, is a natural basis for that comprehensive unity of 
feeling, and sentiment of substantial equality, which would 
render all class jealousies and disafifections impossible, which 
would make each member regard each, as, primarily, a member 
of the institution as a whole, — secondarily, as a member of a 
particular "school," or class, in it. 

Last, but by no means least, every member of every poly- 
technic, or other, professional school, should pursue his work 
with free ardor, in the spirit of^ voluntary and interested research ; 
and not in that of reluctant fulfilment of unwelcome prescribed 
tasks. This radical element of the professional student's spirit 
is also most unequivocally demanded by the primary facts of his 
position. For every candidate for a profession is supposed to 
have freely and devotedly chosen it; and this choice involves 



29 

in it an equally hearty choice of all the labors, and parts of the 
course of training, necessary for honorable and promising 
entrance upon that profession. To this end, effective and per- 
manently reliable command of professional knowledge, consid- 
ered as indispensable to real and permanent success in life, will 
be his absorbing aim. He will therefore never be satisfied with 
such mei-ely provisional knowledge as will serve only the 
shallow and aimless purpose of a mere technical " passing" of 
an examination ; while he can but despise all knavish shifts, 
and aids to the mere form of success, without the reality, as 
mean in themselves, and as too pitifully short-sighted, in view 
of the exacting demands of a professional career. So reasonable 
is all this, that it would seem, and is, doubtless, generally true, 
that nothing more than an occasional suggestion — true, earnest, 
and friendly — could be necessary to hold even a moderately 
right thinking and well meaning young man steadfast in 
obedience to it. 

III. Usages. — Out of the proper spirit of professional schools, 
some of whose elements have just been indicated, there will 
grow a spontaneous rejection of certain inferior and ignoble 
usages — native in lower schools — and of the sometimes absurd 
tyranny of class majorities, whenever, for example, it acts, as 
it sometimes seeks to in lower institutions, to interfere with the 
inalienable right of each individual student to enjoy and im- 
prove every privilege and opportunity offered by the institution 
which he attends — things which are acknowledged as blem- 
ishes, if not as serious evils, in those lower institutions, and in 
the earlier stages of student life. And, so far as new usages 
are instituted, they will be made to harmonize with, professional 
student life, as the highest and closing stage of that life. 

These lower usages, and customs, will be, and usually are, 
exotics, impossible to naturalize in the soil of any professional 
school, which is true to itself; and even the best designed 
secret society should hardly claim recognition as an active 
organization in such schools, in competition with the other 
broader, higher, and worthier grounds of fraternity, which have 
been shown to be afforded by professional student life. Indeed 



30 

we believe it to be true that secret societies rarely, or never, 
maintain an active organization in professional schools, subse- 
quent to college courses. 

In this connection, however, a much more interesting and 
important question arises. The legitimate objects and doings 
of voluntary associations for mutual improvement, if indeed any 
such should exist in professional schools, presents itself as a 
subject not without difficulty. As every one knows, nearly, or 
quite every college possesses one or more large and flourishing 
literary societies. Their existence is readily justified by the 
facts that the characteristic office of the college is to develope 
the mental faculties, and that these faculties are rapidly devel- 
oped by voluntary painstaking exercise, in view of criticism by 
quick and watchful competitors. 

But the office of the professional school is quite different. It 
presupposes faculties already fairly developed, and although it 
does, incidentally, expand, strengthen, and polish them still 
further, yet this is not its primary aim. For its aim, as before 
shown, is, to store the capable mind with fruitful truths, that 
is, with principles, and to initiate the eye and hand in the ele- 
ments of material professional practice, all with a view to a 
productive application of these principles and scientific physical 
accomplishments, in subsequent professional life. 

Now the determining question is this : Can a professional 
student secure accurate scientific information — which, by its 
nature, must be exact, or worthless — and practical scientific* 
skill, more rapidly and effectually than by devoting all his 
energies to the most faultless x)Ossihle preparation of all his lessons, 
and execution of his practical exercises, under thorough professorial 
direction and supervision ? The usual practice of professional 
schools, so far as we are informed, replies in the negative. We 
are not aware of voluntary associations in professional schools, 
supplementary to the declared objects of those schools, that is> 
analogous to college literary societies. Besides, as above 
shown, the entire course, itself, of a professional school, is 
supposed, by the very position and proper motives of its mem- 
bers, to be entered upon and pursued, in the free spirit of 
voluntary and interested research. 



31 

Still, in the polytechnic division of professional schools, we 
think there is a legitimate, though duly limited, field for the 
occupancy of voluntary scientific student associations. 

First. — They may be made the occasion for the interchange 
of valuable results of study and investigation, provided that 
every member of them is qucdijied to contribtde something, and 
pledged to do it, so that all may share the discoveries of each^ 
and thus add to that permanent fund of information which it is^ 
a primary object to acquire. The results alluded to may be 
elegant mathematical reductions; lucid supplementanj notes to- 
obscure passages in text books ; origincd solutions of problems, 
and discussions of their special cases ; contributions of industrial 
drawings — so much more stimulative to student ambition than 
engravings, or copies made by an instructor — or models and 
cabinet specimens, such as can be made or collected in vacations, 
etc. 

Second. — A second general object, in apparently entire har- 
mony with the main objects of the school, would be the 
collection, through regular correspondence wdth graduates, and 
others belonging to the professions taught in the school, of 
copies of professional reports, prepared by those persons ; also 
the exchange of the various regular, or occasional, official issues 
of similar professional schools, and the collection of valuable 
pamphlets, etc., bearing on professional education. 

Such a society would not exist for purposes of debate, nor 
would it probably be well, save in case of a very large institu- 
tion, perhaps embracing a resident graduate staff of high talent, 
or in conjunction with several other like institutions, collect- 
ively sufficient to afford, at all times, an undergraduate staff of 
high merit, to maintain a periodical publication, inasmuch as a 
worthy one would otherwise be apt to abstract too much time 
from devotion to the student's really best interests — already 
pointed out — as a professional student. The society would be 
whatever its name, or organization, substantially a " Society of 
inquiry,'''' analogous, in the scientific field, to " Societies of 
inquiry," in other departments of research. 



^2 

IV. Discipline. — The actual Grade, correspondent Spirit, and 
conseq^ient legitimate Usages of polytechnic and other profes-* 
sional schools, being substantially as thus far described, the 
question of discipline in them is narrowed down to tlie smallest 
limits, barely entitled to recognition as a proper question. 
Every member of such a school, having made free choice of a 
high profession, cannot but be imaged in thought as diligently 
devoted to the means of fulfilling his choice, under the kindly 
guidance of his teachers, whom he will be necessarily incapable 
of regarding otherw^ise than as, only and always, co-operating 
with him, to secure most fully the end he desires, and, thereby, 
incidentally, to promote the best honor and welfare of the 
school, with which both parties are identified inspirit. Where, 
it may well be asked, is there room for the idea of discipline in 
such a picture? 

But let us proceed to search into the elements of this topic. 
For though it may cover ground very familiar to many, conver- 
sant with classical colleges, and the variety of professional 
schools, which have been called humanistic, yet to the nev/er 
community of scientific general intelligence, and eager interest 
in general and technical scientific education, such a re-discussion 
may not be untimely. 

The administrative affairs of the higher schools of learning 
resolve themselves, then, into two main divisions : their external 
or material affairs, and their internal or immediately educational 
ones. 

These tv^^o classes of interests, being quite different, though 
intimately connected, are, in common practice, as by natural 
propriety they should be, committed to two distinct, yet, 
though in separate spheres, really co-operative bodies, viz. : to 
a Board of Regents, Overseers, or Trustees, and to a Faculty, 
embracing, or not, the entire professorial corps, according to its 
numbers, and other obvious considerations. 

A Trustee is one to whom is committed the execution of a 
trust ; and, in case of permanent institutions, as those of 
learning, this execution includes, as cardinal elements, the 
estaUisliment, maintenance, and, if credit is to be given to the 



33 

founder, as a growing, progressive man — provision for the 
growth of the institution. 

But, by expanding this statement somewhat, we have the 
following view : 

1. The external affairs^ embrace these principal points: 

1. The holding of the course of the institution true to the 
general plan designed by its founders ; so that, for example, uo 
medical school could be transformed by its faculty into a theo- 
logical one ; or a classical college, into an academy of music. 

2. The construction and equipment of fit and necessary 
buildings, located on suitable and sufficient grounds ; the build- 
ings to be designed, as far as desirable, by their professorial 
occupants, or with tlieir approval and supervision. 

3. The provision of adequate compensation for professorial 
work demanded, according to a justly recognized value of the 
same. 

4. The appointment of officers of instruction, which, to 
best promote desired success, should be in accordance with 
nomination, recommendation, or known approval of other such 
officers, if already existing in the institution. 

5. The holding of an existing faculty responsible, in behalf 
of material interests, for the successful working of the institu- 
tion, unavoidable external hindrances excepted, under a sys- 
tem of instruction and government to be devised and adminis- 
tered by the faculty ; and expecting them singly, or severally, 
to give place to more competent successors, if their department, 
or general systems and administrations, respectively, manifestly 
fail of success, owing to inherent imperfections. 

6. The establishment of appropriate regulations for preserv- 
ing the buildings and other property of the institution, and for 
the management of its funds ; also in some cases a certain ex- 
tent of active participation in forming outlines of a system of 
rules of internal government ; especially for academies, and for 
institutions of the collegiate type, particularly for State Univer- 
sities, like that of Michigan, for example, which, being creations 
of the people^ may reasonably be regulated, in a general way, 

5 



34 

by agents chosen by the people ; as is done in the case referred 
to, but with an important qualification, soon to be noted. 

These high and honorable functions are committed, as before 
stated, to a Board of officers, chosen, in part, for their posses- 
sion of such liberal culture, and enlarged views, as would 
make them readily sympathetic and co-operative with an ear- 
nest Faculty, in appreciating, and laboring to meet, the claims 
and wants of an institution ; and in part for their possession of 
business capacity and energy to secure, in conjunction with 
Faculty efforts, due pecuniary response from wealthy liberality, 
to these claims and wants. 

2, The internal qfairs of superior institutions, are ranged 
under these two principal heads : 

1. Instruction. 

2. Government. 

The department of i?istniction, in a general sense, includes 
the designing of a comprehensive and symmetrical curriculum, 
in harmony with the declared objects of the institution, and of 
a practicable daily working programme, as a means of realizing 
the proposed curriculum, as well as the actual work of class 
instruction. 

The department of government, embraces the equitable and 
charitable, while efficient, enforcement of such written rules as 
are found expedient, for those institutions which are fit subjects 
for government under the system of written rules, viz : acade- 
mies, and, in part, colleges. It also embraces the strict hold- 
ing of professional students responsible for violations of the 
obvious proprieties of their position, without rules of general 
moral or social conduct, either to instruct or to constrain; these 
being the legitimate functions of rules. For the whole theory 
of a professional school supposes that every member of it is, as 
before stated, both able and willing, by virtue of the very 
nature of his position, to do his duty as a student, man and gen- 
tleman. If he is not thus able, owing to social or moral back- 
wardness, nor willing, owing to obliquities of moral purpose, 
he is simply out of his proper position. Accordingly, with the 



35 

clearly pronounced moral character, properly correspondent 
with the general maturity of mind and character naturally 
belonging to membership in any professional school, every 
member either is, or is not, entitled to his position. If he is 
fully, or nearly, so entitled, or is readily accessible to influences 
tending to make him perfectly so, he should be retained. If 
he is not, he should be promptly exscinded, we would say, not 
" expelled," as appended to, but in no true sense of, the proper 
membership of the institution. The professional school is no 
field, we think, for the exercise of that tentative, or expectant, 
method of discipline, which consists in a long drawn gradation 
of penalties, embracing college rustications, etc., etc., etc. 
Indeed, it is not such a field, in prevalent practice. But of this 
somewhat further, in the next section, as it cannot be discussed 
just here, without too much complication of the topic imme- 
diately in hand. 

Now to whom are these internal affairs legitimately commit- 
ted ? To the facult)^, as supreme, acting under the abundant 
regulative agency of a general, but high, responsibility, already 
explained, for the success of its administration. This position 
is no less supported by sound reason than by prevalent usage. 

Firsts in reference to instruction. A curriculum must be 
made, first, to accord with the declared objects of the institu- 
tion adopting it. Then, as the time demanded for completing 
the course of study required by it, also material alterations in 
the length of the course, may decidedly affect the financial 
prosperity of an institution, through effects upon the attend- 
ance which it can command, these points are matters for mutual 
conference and agreement between the officers of external and 
internal government. But beyond these general preliminaries, 
the control of the officers of instruction, over the arrangement 
of studies, and methods of teaching, is probably nowhere ques- 
tioned. 

Second, in reference to government, several rational grounds 
for supreme faculty control present themselves. 

1. If at all competent to their other duties, as teachers in a 
professional school, would not men intellectually capable of 



36 

giving the elevated instruction expected of them, also know^ 
what and hovi^ much of student propriety to ask, and hov^^ to 
secure it? 

2. Principals of academies, may, in many cases, regard their 
positions as provisional, w^hile seeking some other, as a perma- 
nent one ; but professors in superior institutions, usually con- 
template their positions as permanent, unless called to better 
ones, and enter into their duties as more or less a labor of love. 
They identify their own reputations with that of their chosen 
institution, and thus having every motive to study and promote 
its welfare, and no motive to defeat that welfare, they are under 
no dangerous temptation to do deliberate injustice to any one 
under their care. Besides, 

3. Which is worthy of separate mention, they act, according 
to their legitimate form of responsibility above mentioned, 
knowing that they justly forfeit their places, if a system of 
their own free devising, and externally unhindered administra- 
tion, manifestly fails of success. 

4. And not least, how could those who, week after week, and 
month after month, come in daily intimate contact with the 
members of an institution, but be infinitely better qualified to 
deal justly with offences, than those who rarely, or never, meet 
with those members? 

Testimony also is clear in support of our position. Two 
representative specimens will here be introduced, since some 
are so constituted as to be better satisfied with the argument 
from experience and testimony, than with a purely rational one. 

1. From the "Seventy-sixth annual Report of Regents of the 
University of the State of New York," 1863. After noticing that 
some academies had lapsed into partial inefficiency, and attrib- 
uting it immediately to want of the exercise of trustee super- 
visory care over their internal affairs, needed, perhaps, for the 
reason just now explained, they proceed thus ; " The faculties 
of colleges are necessarily intrusted with their internal administra- 
tion. (The italics are ours.) Composed of gentlemen, of expe- 
rience and ability, who, in most instances, have chosen their 
profession as the employment of life, their character being that 



37 

the institution with which they are connected, they have every 
motive to faithful and earnest duty." 

And it only needs to be added : If this be true for colleges, 
how much more for professional schools, of every kind, as 
belonging to the next succeeding educational stage. 

2. Extract from the constitution and laws of one of our larg- 
est and most successful universities : 

For the General Department. — " The immediate government 
of the department shall be vested in the faculty, and it shall be 
their duty to direct and instruct the students in the several 
branches of learning taught in the department, [to encourage 
them in the acquisition of knowledge and the practice of virtue, 
to counsel and warn the offending, and faithfully and impartially 
to administer the law established by the Regents,"] the last 
phrase being in accordance with the fact that the institution is 
a creation of the people of a state, and therefore under a general 
supervision, by agents periodically elected by the people. 

The whole paragraph, it may be added, is happily expressive 
of what every worthy professor voluntarily and gladly does. 

For the Professional Department, taking the medical school as 
an example. " The immediate government of this department 
shall be vested in the faculty, whose duty it shall be to instruct 
the students in the several branches of learning, taught in the 
department." This is all, and in addition to the testimony to 
the lodgment of control over internal affairs solely with the 
Faculty, how significant the omissions, how strong the asser- 
tion, by implication, that every member of a^ xwofessional school 
is responsible for being a self-governing man, in spirit ; to stand 
in, or fall from, his position, according to his conformity to that 
standard. Indeed, in the report of the Regents, just before 
referred to, the almost stereotyped phrase in the separate 
reports of the numerous professional schools, is, " No rules of 
discipline have been adopted. General propriety and decorum 
are required." 

Once more, an instructive citation, from the same source, 
merely to show what, and how much, is meant by the vesting 
of the internal government of all departments in the faculty 



38 

alone. " The presenting of petitions, or other papers, to the 
Board of Regents, in regard to the government of the Univer- 
sity ; etc. ; etc., are regarded as disorderly ; and any student 
who engages in such practices may be dismissed from the Uni- 
versity hy the faculty (italics our ov^n) of the department to 
which he belongs." 

In view now of all this extended re-discussion of ground, 
embracing well established principles and usages, familiar to 
many higher educators, no anomaly could be more evidently 
unseemly than would be the extension of the college system of 
rules, with pains and penalties annexed, over the superior do- 
main of professional student life, unless it should be such an 
extreme misapprehension of the grade of the polytechnic class 
of professional schools — as level with that of other professional 
schools — as would lead to the sinking of them even below 
colleges, to the plane of such academies as might seem to be 
in need of an active trustee administration of their internal 
affairs, as well of their external ones. 

It is only necessary to add, in conclusion of the remarks 
under this head, first, that they are not a plea for what is not, 
but ought to be, but are the result of inquiry as to the natural 
grounds of the usages already generally established, by com- 
mon consent, as right and proper ; and second, that nothing 
now said militates against the existence of rules for the proper 
use and care of special rooms, and conduct of special exercises, 
as Laboratories, Observatories, etc., Field Exercises, etc. 



IV. 

§fempBirg btwi.ei the |tel mii 



There is no motive for concealing the fact that the preceding 
views are, in part, ideal, because, in a fevi^ of the most devel- 
oped cases, the actual so nearly approaches the ideal in many 
substantial particulars, or can easily be made to do so, in these, 
and other, cases. 

In reference to instruction, the great want of polytechnic 
professional schools, is a class of preceding institutions, bearing 
the same relation to them, that a classical college does, for 
example, to a theological school. This want is, however, not 
totally unsupplied. For, first, Norwich University, Vt., Michi- 
gan University, Union College, the University of New York, 
Brown University, and some other institutions, expressly set 
forth two parallel courses of general training and liberal cul- 
ture, the one classical, the other substituting the French and 
German languages of living and fruitful science, physical science 
itself, and modern history, for ancient history, and the dead 
languages of still more dead gods, and their corrupt intrigues. 
Other colleges, as Harvard and Yale, partly accomplish the 
same thing by a more or less liberal provision of elective studies, 
embracing mathematics, physics, natural science, modern lan- 
guages, and history. 

Every distinguished and high-minded professional man earn- 
estly desires, by his love for his profession, that every one 



40 



entering it should possess a previously acquired liberal educa- 
tion ; either a collegiate one, or the nearest attainable substan- 
tial equivalent for it that the still incompletely organized and 
classified educational instrumentalities of the country allow, in 
preparation for that profession. But, as is well known, there is 
a want of adaptation, on the one hand, of collegiate culture to 
the -wants of all the different jDrofessional -schools, and a readi- 
ness in the community, on the other — happily decreasing it 
may be hoped — to accept boldly self-asserting superficiality. 
Wherefore, it comes to pass, that, in looking through the cata- 
logues of professional schools, we find it not insisted on, as a 
condition for admission, that their members shall be college 
graduates, and but few of them are. A few scattering statistics 
will sufficiently illustrate this point, as seen in the following 



PARTIAL TABLE 



OF MEMBERS OF PROFESSIONAL SCnOOLS, HAVING C0LLF:GR DEGREES. 







Law. 


Medical. 


Scientific 
(Technical.) 




8 of 47 


Oof 37 


" 1865, 




of 48 


University of Michigan, 1858, 




6 of 137 
25 of 414 
34 of 116 
45 of 206 
50 of 167 
10 of 45 


7 of 36 


" *' 1865, 


48 of 260 
71 of 104 
53 of 103 
75 of 123 
12 of 31 


7 of 29 


Harvard College, 1851-2, 


17 of 69 


1861-2, 


13 of 57 


" " 1863-4, 


15 of 75 


Tale College, 1863-4, 


7 of 57 


Union College, 1 8ii0, 


2 of 4f> 


" " 1865 






6 of 40 


Columbia College, 1864-5, 


88 of 158 




8 of 43 


Philadelphia Polytechnic College 
Rensselaer Polytiechnic Institute, 


1864 




2 of 136 


I860,.. 






3 of 75 




1866,. . 







10 of 152 



The above results show that all professional schools stand in 
an attitude of compromise. While their most earnest friends 
would like to see every member of them possessed of a " de- 
gree," representative of a previous "liberal" or general train- 
ing, they must accept the nearest attainable equivalent for it. 
Considering, now, at what a disadvantage the scientific techni- 
cal schools are placed, in the scarcity of collegiate institutions 
giving a previous general culture, suited to their wants, the fair 



41 

proportion of collegiate graduates among their members is sur- 
prising, and gratifying. In connection, too, with the undoubted 
fact that many others of those members have, by diligence, and 
pursuit of extra studies in the best academies and high sciiools, 
obtained the substantial equivalent of a college education, the 
above proportion of graduates is a new vindication of the claim 
of these technical schools to full recognition as professional 
schools. 

Definite statistics, in respect to the nature and extent of the 
previous studies of members of the " Scientific Schools," are, of 
course, not very readily obtainable. 

The following view exhibits the results of inquiries, for three 
times of admission to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 
Out of 132 men, of whom inquiry was made, the figures below 
show how many had studied, more or less, the subjects against 
which the figures stand : 

Botany, 32 History, 75 

Chemistry, IS Composition and Rhetoric, 92 

Geology, 26 .\'ental Philosophy, 24 

Physi ;al Geography, 48 Moral Philosophy, 28 

Natural Philosophy, 101 Greek, 25 

Pbysiolrgy, 47 Latin, (^5 

Astronomy (Popular), 49 French, 65 

Music, Vocal or Instrumental, 49 Other Languages, 25 

Free Drawing, 50 

This result gives nearly seven subjects, on an average, to each 
man, besides the fundamental subjects for admission, viz : 
Arithmetic, Elocution, 

Algebra, Penmanship, 

Geometry, General Grammar, 

Geography, Orthography, 

and besides something done, perhaps, in 

Zoology, etc., Geometrical Drawing, 

Logic, Sook Keeping, 

Political Economy, Trigonometry, 

Surveying, 
subjects not embraced in the inquiry, though they very perti- 
nently might have been. 
6 



42 

Much might be gained to the cause of sound and advanced 
scientific professional scholarship, by the general adoption of 
the Elements of Physics (Natural Philosophy), of Trigonometry, 
of French^ and of Geometrical Drcnving, as requirements for 
admission to Polytechnic Schools, in addition to the eight sub- 
jects above mentioned. 

A second method, by which the polytechnic institutions are 
supplied with due preparatory courses, is by carrying back- 
ward their own courses of study behind the point at which they 
are wholly or strictly professional. As may be seen by refer- 
ence to numerous catalogues, two years, only, occasionally 
three, is the usual length of Law and Medical courses of in- 
struction, the commonly required three years' residence with an 
approved practitioner, in the latter case, being offset by the 
subordinate positions generally occupied by young engineers, 
etc., for an equal time. But, by reference to the Table in Sec- 
tion I, we see that the scientific school courses are frequently 
of three, and sometimes four, years' duration. Now, in several 
of these institutions, the earlier portions of these extended 
courses, embracing as they mainly do, subjects which every 
one, aiming at a high standard of "liberal" scientific culture, 
should be acquainted with, are expressly placed within the 
sphere of collegiate, or general, disciplinary culture. Thus, at the 
Fhiladeljjhia Folyfechnic College, there is a separately entitled 
general "scientific course " of one year, disclaimed as profes- 
sional, surrounded by a circle of six professional courses of two 
full years each. In the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
the first two years study, while evidently designed to corres- 
pond to a very elevated standard of what general scientific 
training should be, is only assigned to the sphere of such train- 
ing, while the several parallel courses of the last two years are 
designated as strictly professional. And once more, in the 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, whose course is one of four 
years, the studies are, from the beginning of " Division D," 
narrowly, but increasingly, and at last almost purely, profes- 
sional ; and, correlatively, at first widely, but decreasingly 
general ; or of a kind necessary to be understood by persons 
desiring only a liberal disciplinary education. 



43 

From the results thus far indicated in this section, two 
important inferences, and a concluding reflection, arise. 

First — The Officers, Members, Alumni especially, and Friends 
generally, of technical schools, have a mission to perform, in 
elevating them to an unohscured, and imrlisputed, level of rank, 
with the universally acknowledged professional schools of other 
kinds. This mission embraces such particulars as the follow- 
ing : 1. As college graduates, other things being the same, 
naturally make the most appreciative and well qualified mem- 
bers of professional schools, every effort should be made to 
increase the number of those colleges which afford scientific 
general courses, of not less than three years' duration, as the 
legitimate forerunners o^ scientific technical courses. To expedite 
this desirable movement, academies also — for in them the work 
must begin — should divide their upper classes into sections, the 
members of one of which should be put in special training for a 
scientific college course, while the members of the other would be 
preparing for the parallel c?a.ss?ca? course. '2. That the profes- 
sional rank of the technical schools should be unobscured, the 
more fully developed among them, so far as they desire to do 
their ow^n preparatory training, might well resolve themselves 
into a distinctly pronounced two-fold general organisation, the first 
department of which should be of a collegiate character, and 
adapted to the earlier wants of youth seeking a finished scien- 
tific education ; the second department embracing any proposed 
number of strictly professional schools, managed exclusively as 
such, in respect to matter of instruction, and tone of administra- 
tion, 3. The establishment oi resident graduate, or true univer- 
sity, courses, according to the standard, named on p. 23, for the 
benefit of those who have means, and desire to pursue particular 
subjects to an unusual extent ; also, efforts to secure, at all 
times, at least a few students in such courses, who would also 
peculiarly benefit, both themselves, and the institution, by be- 
coming assistant instructors in it. 

4. The general adoption, in full, of the three fundamental 
tests of student proficiency, viz : 



44 

a. — The daily recitation, or interrogation, upon assigned les- 
sons, or performance of assigned exercises, and solutions of new 
problems, as the distinctive test of regular daily fidelity to duty, 
and growing command of principles ; first, in advance ; second, 
in review. 

h. — The oral session examination, or test of power to retain 
matter once learned. 

c. — The written examination (upon new applications of gen- 
eral |;)rinciples) the test of retained available command over one's 
knowledge, for purposes of varied practical application. 

The examinations, should, moreover, to possess the greatest 
value, cover three different periods, — first, each term as a whole, 
second each year as a whole, third the total course, as a whole, 
so that the graduate could, most truthfully, as by the law of 
public morality bound, be represented as possessed, at gradua- 
tion, of at least a fair available knowledge of the entire course 
of study pursued by him. 

The efficient maintenance of these three tests, and legitimate 
external stimulants, on the one hand, and natural adaptation, as 
the natural internal stimulant, on the other, might doubtless be 
relied on to secure results, permanent and solid, if not brilliant, 
and such as would demonstrate the impertinence of every arti- 
ficial stimulant, such as prizes, etc., etc. 

5. With the adoption of such essential measures as the above, 
the merely formal representative, but very desirable, ones, of 
increased age, and scholastic requirements for admission to 
technical schools (see p. 42), would fall into place as matters of 
course. They are worthy of separate mention, however, since 
their adoption would doubtless react, especially in conjunction 
with the fourth particular just named, to secm-e the desired 
movement in respect to the first three of the above fundamental 
measures. It is our conviction that the best rule for settling 
the somewhat arbitrary point of age for admission, would be, to 
subtract the total length of the course from the age of twenty- 
one years, as the minimum for professional graduation. 

Second. — In view of the more or less mixed character of most 
existing Technical Schools, as now explained, the grand ques- 



45 

tion arises, shall their governmental administration accord with 
the provisional, abnormal, and subordinate general, or colle- 
giate, character found in their earlier stages, or with their per- 
manent, normal, and more and more prevailing character, as 
purely professional schools ? With the latter character, by all 
means, we most heartily say, after much experience, with many 
a company of efficiently self-governing young men. If a single 
qualification is to be made, as a provisional concession to the 
mixed character of our Technical Schools as at present found, 
it would be in favor of the adoption of the single rule requiring 
regularity of attendance, and responsibility for preparation, 
since, when these points are secured, nearly everything is se- 
cured, so true is it that idleness is the open door to every vi- 
cious folly. For all the rest, uniform conformity, without rules, 
to the standard implied in previous statements, is to be tacitly 
demanded, and practically enforced, quietly, and as matter of 
course. But while the inviolable honor of a professional school 
demands this plain speaking, it should be regarded, first, as no 
less the voice of all its members, than of its Faculty ; and 
second, as in no way inconsistent with that sacred regard for 
human nature in the stage of young manhood, which would, by 
every kindly means, forestall all need of discipline. 

Few are so strongly self-centred, through possession of that 
controlling personality, which consists of a vigorous will, guided 
by enlightened reason, as to be the same, in character and con- 
duct, under the strain of greatly varied surroundings; as to be 
free from the sway of the principle that men will often be to a 
great extent what you, by your manner of dealing with them, 
practically declare them to be. Wherefore, if a professional 
school is operated on college or academy principles, i. e., under 
a code of formal rules — too often embracing petty provisions, 
or commanding, and enforcing by an espionage, humiliating to 
all concerned, those higher duties, performance of which must 
be free, or w^orthless — the characteristic blemishes found in the 
weaker and frivolous elements of college and acadeniy life, will 
find their familiar " habitat,'''' and spring up with the certainty 
of fate. But, conduct the almost completely professional school 



46 

in the interest of its own best aspirations to be undisguisedly 
and undisputedly such, and there is abundant and bright evi- 
dence to show, tliat, even with its youngest members, regard 
for its honor and dignity, as well as for the home whose wish is 
law, will maintain all needful supremacy over the natural im- 
pulses of earlier young manhood. Why then repress this rising, 
and easily cultivated, spirit of healthy manliness, and profes- 
sional honor ; and, for no equivalent good secured, postpone the 
full attainment of the acknowledged rank of professional school 
for, and of, young men ? 

But the most complete and decisive justification of the policy, 
here advocated, lies, it seems to us, in the obvious propriety, if 
not positive obligation, of making the closing stage of a young 
man's student life correspond, in its prominent features, with 
the closely subsequent practical life, in which he must stand, or 
fall, according to the amount of his own knowledge, and power 
to use it, and according to his self-governing power. Is it jus- 
tice, we ask, to the unalterable constitution of human nature, 
to plunge it at once from a system of floats, and guide-ropes, in 
a shallow tank, into deep and troubled water, where the powers 
of a practised swimmer are required? Are not educators for 
professional life hound to afford, by a system of administration 
which demands substantially self-governing manliness, a little 
experimental, and last, school circle of practical life, prelimi- 
nary to the world's great circle of real life ? Should not the 
discipline of the professional school, as the closing one, be stim- 
ulative of interest and alacrity in the "good work of self-disci- 
pline and early self-government, instead of listless or murmuring 
obedience to ignoble external restraints ? Why should the 
character of the final system of control over student life be 
based on the conduct of the meanest few, who have no claim 
to their position, rather than on that of the honorable and self- 
regulating many ? In other words, why shoidd it he hased on a 
few mean facts, rather than on many goodly ones, so as to present 
to all right endeavor the pledge of the best recognition, viz., 
recognition of its right to real freedom. And here we add, that 
every member of every kind of professional school, who would 



47 

see, and be animated by, what is practicable in self-government, 
under rules, courts, and procedures, of their own devising, 
among such students, and practicable in elevated and refined 
associate life, would do well to ponder the account of a cele- 
brated Swiss school, described in the article, " Student life at 
Hofwyl," in the Atlantic Monthly for May, 1865, an article 
which, it is to be wished, might be separately printed for wide 
circulation as an educational tract. 

As this article may not be accessible to all, we cannot exclude 
an intimation of the character of the system described in it. 
According to this system, the primary disciplinary power of a 
superior institution should be its students themselves, acting 
through an organized and dignified tribunal with regular rules 
of procedure, and acting in behalf of a high-toned student civili- 
zation. The decisions of this tribunal, in reference to offenders 
against the true honor of the institution, were to be subject to 
revision, or absolute veto, by the Faculty. The practical effect 
of this feature was, however, to stimulate the students, strongly, 
to weigh and consider their decisions so dispassionately and 
carefully, as, if possible, never to have them vetoed ; and even 
modified, as seldom and as slightly as possible. 

Under such a system, the well-being of school buildings, and 
the absolute immunity of its furniture from all needless deface- 
ment, could never be more complete than when committed to 
the voluntarily responsible charge of the students ; while nothing 
could so restrain idleness, drunkenness, or offences against 
neighborhood peace, or property, or disorderly concomitants of 
out of door exercises, or excursions, so effectually as wholesome 
sense of strict accountability to the high-toned collective senti- 
timent of one's peers, enforced, through the orderly action of a 
tribunal of those peers. 

It is also but justice further to add, in finally dismissing this 
topic, that the writer, himself, attended, for two years, a private 
free school* of high order, in which no code, if it existed, 
was ever posted or heard of, and in which the grounds were 



* In Newbiiryport, Mi 



48 

laid out, and well kept, by the pupils, and the building was 
treated as a home by them, and all the relations of teachers 
and pupils were those of a polite company, bound together, 
and to duty, by unwritten laws of social decorum and kindness. 
But it should be added, in partial explanation of this elevated 
character of student life, that this school embraced pupils of 
both sexes, who associated freely, under the fewest guiding 
restraints, not only in daily classes, but in musical and horti- 
cultural associations, and in editorial and anniversary managing 
committees, all of which were active organizations. Rational 
faith, in young humanity thus put on a fair footing, here had 
its perfect reward, in the absence, nay more, the practically 
impossible occurrence of any indecorum. Does not, then, the 
advancing and purified civilization of the day demand that 
colleges should prove their ability to rise to the level of 
deserved emancipation from sumptuary laws, rather than that, 
by a retrograde policy, professional schools of any kind should 
be lowered to the level of involuntary subjection to such laws? 

But we contemplated a closing reflection to this section, as 
follows : 

It may be questioned whether, with our familiarity with the 
advantages of the present, and our comparative incapacity to 
realize, as by experience, the disadvantages of the past, we duly 
appreciate the bearings of the great contrast between them. 
Consider, then, that classical instruction, not essentially differ- 
ent from the present, dates back to days when those mighty 
agencies of popular enlightenment and kindly civilization — the 
public school ; the popular lecture ; the cheap, ever present, 
and well-filled, periodical ; the free library ; the wide extended 
and diffused facilities for cheap and rapid travelling, so influen- 
tial in opening and liberalizing the mind; the Sunday school, 
too, and generally accessible kindly and helpful pulpit minis- 
trations, sources of intelligence as well as of moral and religious 
soundness — when all these, were nearly or quite unknown. 
In a word, the truly educating agencies of civilized practical 
life, were far more meagre in earlier days than now. Hence 
many a bright and steady lad, of twelve to fourteen years, now, 



49 

could far exceed in mental development, and general ability to 
act in current life, many a rude bumpkin of former days. 
Hence also — and this is a point not often considered, as would 
appear — so large a proportion of one's total edacation being 
accomplished by the common and constant agencies of ripening 
civilized society, a less proportion is left to be still committed 
to special organizations expressly designed to impart instruc- 
tion. Therefore, there seems to be no need for the general or 
technical scientific school to be sensitive about adopting as the 
total time appropriated by them, the stereotyped allowance of 
six or seven years, as in the usual classical course of four years, 
followed by a professional course of two or three years. Indeed 
a general and technical course, united, of from four to six years, 
added to what the best public schools and academies can now 
do for diligent members of them, would doubtless place their 
recipients more than on a par in general culture and available 
power, with the graduate, in generations gone by, of such a 
seven years' course as could then have been had. If, then, a 
seven years' course be still retained, as the ideal of a full extent 
of general and professional school training, it would be with a 
view to greatly raising the standard of both general and profes- 
sional scholarship, over that of times when the school was far 
less richly supplemented by the educating agencies of common 
life than now. Such a result is most desirable, in behalf of still 
continued human progress, while the enlarged area of know- 
ledge offers ample resources for filling seven years of time with 
elevated, delightful, and fruitful study. Meantime, we see in 
these efficiently educating instrumentalities of our enriched 
modern life, so many of which are especially consonant with 
scientific study, a source of that suhstantial equivalent for the 
old collegiate dlsciplinarij preparation for professional study, which 
the technical schools have, at present, partly to rely upon. 



V. 



Sources of information concerning polytechnic instruction in 
Europe are remarkably, and unfortunately, scarce and inacces- 
sible. Long extended encyclopoedia articles on education, supe- 
rior institutions of learning, and nations, in Europe, pass over 
the polytechnic institutions, which there justly claim equality 
of rank with the highest, with bare allusions, or partial enumer- 
ation ; quite barren of all definite information. This may arise 
from the comparatively recent origin of these schools, whereby 
they have not yet fallen into a recognized place in national 
systems of education. In view of the probable lack of informa- 
tion still remaining in various quarters, concerning the number 
and chai'acter of European polytechnic schools, we have thought 
that the best concluding section of these notes would be a brief 
account of some of them, and notes of matters suggested by a 
view of them, as follows: 

In Feance. The Imperial Polytechnic School This cele- 
brated institution was founded in 1794. Its course of study 
occupies but two years, but this is only because its require- 
ments for admission, especially in mathematics, would be a fair 
qualification for a professorship in many institutions, while its 
own professors have often been the generally acknowledged 
leaders in their respective branches. This school being, more- 
over, mainly one of general science, it is supplemented for pur- 
poses of strictly professional and technical education, by various 
special schools, some of which are the following: 

The School of Roads and Bridges, for the special training of 
civil engineers. Course three vears. 



51 

The National School of Mines, with ample illustrative collec- 
tions, and a course covering three years, for the professional 
training of mining engineers. 

Three National Schools of Arts and Trades, in conjunction 
with the splendidly equipped Conservatory of Arts ccnd Trades 
at Paris, form an effective insti'ument for educating higher arti- 
zans. 

The Inipericd School of Forestrij. 

The Impericd School of Agricidture. 

All these high and useful institutions, and others like them, 
are as yet, being of so recent origin, out of the pale of the 
great central state department of National education, known as 
the " University of France," and which embraces the whole old 
and long organized graded system of National instruction, from 
the primary schools to the Academies, so called, which are 
under the charge of eminent Faculties, and have a university 
character. 

The above institutions are, however, national ones, but there 
is one, the Centred School of Arts and Manufactures, which is a 
private institution, founded in 1829, of too high grade to be 
overlooked. Its courses occupy three years, and provide for 
the wants of Civil Engineers, Mining Engineers, Mechanical 
Engineers, and Chemical Technologists. 

In GrERMANY. Here, as might be supposed, from the reflect- 
ive turn of the G-erman mind, national education is more 
thoroughly organized than anywhere else in the world, and 
popular education, through common schools, more universal 
than even in this country, except perhaps in the most favored 
portions of New England. 

The comprehensive organization of German schools, of all 
grades, is as follows : 

Frimary. 

All the Elementary Schools. 

Secondary. 

Classical Schools ; Real Schools ; Artizan Schools. 

Superior. 

Universities ; Polytechnic Institutes. 



52 

The Classical schools, called gymnasia, are ot" about the same 
grade as our classical colleges. The Real schools are about 
equivalent to the parallel "scientific courses" advertised in 
some of our colleges, v^^here physical and mathematical studies, 
with modern languages, largely replace attention to sundry 
frivolities of pagan mythology. The Artizan schools, or indus- 
trial colleges, are yet more decidedly modern and practical, and 
stand in a relation to the Polytechnic Institutes, or Industrial 
Universities," similar to that of the Classical Schools (colleges) 
to the old Universities. In 1852, there v^ere 26 of these indus- 
trial colleges in Prussia, and their substantial equivalency to 
the classical schools, and our ov^n colleges, is seen in the fact 
that there, as here, fourteen years is the minimum age for 
admission to them, while the actual age on entering is consid- 
erably higher. 

Coming now to the true Polytechnic, or Professional Insti- 
tutes, we find, among others : 

The Royal Trade Institute of Berlin, founded in 1821, with a 
general course of three years, followed by three special courses, 
for civil and mechanical engineers ; for professional chemists ; 
and for architects. 

The Polytechnic Institute at Vienna was founded in 1815. It 
includes its own preparatory (real school) course, of two years, 
followed by a technical course of five years, also a commercial 
one, and commanding a total attendance upon its regular 
courses, of 1637 students in 1852. 

The Bohemian Nobles' Technical Institute at Prague, founded 
in 1806, with a preparatory course of two years, and a tech- 
nical course of three years. 

In Bavaria, also, there are twenty-six of the artizan or trade 
schools (industrial colleges) having courses of three years each, 
preparatory to the three superior polytechnic schools, the oldest 
of which is the Polytechnic School at Munich, founded in 1827. 
It embraces a preparatory course of three years, and a poly- 
technic course, proper, of four years. 



53 

The technical schools of Saxony are of a high order, embrj]- 
cing in their lower grades, the Royal Trade and Building School 
at Chemnitz, with courses respectively of four, and two, years. 

Above these, are the Royal FolytccJmic ScJiool at. Dresden, 
with a lower and upper section, embracing courses of three, 
and two years, respectively. Also 'the celebrated Mining 
Academy at Freiberg, the oldest in the world of its kind, which 
was founded in 1765, and provides a four years' course of study. 

The FolytecJmic School at Carlsruhe in Baden, established in 
1825, is remarkable for its completeness of organization, embra- 
cing a foundation course of three years, followed by numerous 
technical courses, viz. : one in Engineering, of three years ; in 
Architecture, of four years ; in Technical Chemistry, of two 
years ; in Mechanism and Technology, of two years ; in Forestry, 
of two years ; in Commercial Science, of one year ; and in 
Postal service, of two years. 

Great Britain. While this nation was fancying itself to be 
secure in its commercial and manufacturing supremacy, the 
London Exhibition of 3 851, roused it to a sense of the danger 
of its falling into a secondary scientific industrial position, 
owing to its comparative neglect of ]\rodern Applied Science 
in its higher schools of learning. Glasgow University, how- 
ever, in 1839, Kings' College, London, and Queen's College, 
Birmingham, in 1851, were giving formal and quite elevated 
theoretical and practical instruction in Applied Science. 

King's College embraced courses of three years in civil and 
mechanical engineering, and in general and technical chemistry, 
requiring sixteen years as the age for admission. 

Queen's College announced courses in civil engineering and 
architecture of three years duration, requiring their entering 
members to be eighteen years of age. 

There are also, in London, we think, a College of Civil En- 
gineers, a Government School of Mines, and a Department 
of Science and Art in the Listitute of Civil Engineers ; 
besides numerous Schools of Lidustrial (ornamental) Design 
throughout the United Kingdom, and a College of Civil En- 
gineers for the Lidian department, at Madras, India, notices of 
which we have met in Madras papers ; and, without doubt, means 



54 

must exist — in scientific ciiairs of instruction attached here and 
there, to the other colleges and universities, and supplemented, 
perhaps, more than elsewhere, by private study, or by the 
adoption of continental precedents ready furnished to hand, or 
by attendance at continental schools — for educating the accom- 
plished engineers, to whose qualifications, however attained, 
British engineering works testify. We therefore close this 
notice of foi-eign polytechnic institutions, with the remark, 
that the one at Carlsruhe is the most nearly typical one, from 
its comprehensiveness of organization. 

The preceding statistics may be presumed to be interesting, 
if only as showing what earnest and intelligent fellow laborers 
have done and are doing elsewhere, and under different political 
systems from ours. But they serve a higher end. They de- 
monstrate the existence of a universal demand, in all civilized 
countries, for a new form of general educational culture, and 
professional training ; not to supplant the old, which includes 
much that is permanently precious, but to run parallel with it, 
as the legitimate outgrov^th of modern science and life, and as 
the fountain of supply for the new order of intellectual and 
industrial wants. 

This view is confirmed by the fact that the continental appre- 
ciation of polytechnic instruction is suoh, that the larger and 
lesser European States make appropriations for its support 
within their borders, as regularly as our American States do for 
common school instruction. 

Some may have a conceit that the man-developing effect of 
freedom alone, without special educating organizations, is an 
equivalent to the elaborate systematic instruction, thought of, 
perhaps, as only necessary to counterbalance the repressing 
agencies of despotic governments. But with duly admiring 
deference to Yankee ability to fall back upon native resources 
in many an emergency, we think the following to be, rather, 
the true line of argument, relative to this point. If the 
numerous and crowded polytechnic schools of Europe accom- 
plish so much, as they indisputably do, with all the depressing 
hindrances of a half-suffocated civil life as the' political lot of 



55 

their gradilates, what might they not do, if every graduate was 
there, as in this country every person is, one of the royal 
family ? In other words, if partly untutored American freedom 
can compete with the world besides, in many of the truly best 
contributions to World's Exhibitions, and well-called "Univer- 
sal Expositions," what might not thoroughly cultured and 
trained American freedom accomplish, with its fire and elasti- 
city acting through finished intellectual machinery, such as 
thorough scientific and polytechnic education may produce out 
of the material, turned out in an only partially wrought form 
by the common school from the native ore of original talent ? 
Finally, therefore, it is to be most earnestly hoped that at 
least among the institutions, having so large resources as those 
provided for by the National land grants to the States for 
endowing Scientific Institutions in each, especially if also other- 
wise liberally endowed, if not among the riper Technical 
Schools of this country, some one will ere long be found, to 
signalize an era in American scientific education, and confer a 
new and peculiar glory on the fortunate State containing it, by 
constituting itself a true typical Folytechnic University, charac- 
terized by a completely comprehensive unity of design, and 
built up, if gradually, not in a disjointed manner, but, even in 
the planning of its grounds and distribution of its buildings, as 
well as in its component courses, and "schools," in accordance 
with a complete original plan. 

Such a "University" should be distinguished — First: by a 
- central foundation, or general, scientific school, of high charac- 
ter, with a course of liberal training in general disciplinary and 
^useful knowledge, embracing such a proportion of elective 
studies as to possess due flexibility in providing for the wants 
of those who should be contemplating any particular subsequent 
technical and professional course. Second : it should be distin- 
guished by possession of the highest true university attribute, 
of making express provision for the indefinitely extended pur- 
suit of single or associated subjects of general science, and real 
learning. Third : circling as it were, around this central gen- 
eral school, which should be in a plain, but rich and massive 



56 

structure, there should be a collection of all the technical pro- 
fessional schools, congruous with the distinctive idea of a Foly- 
technic, rather than a Humanistic, University, viz : one of Civil 
and TopograpJiical Engineering (sections of one school) ; one of 
Mechanical Engineering ; one of Mining and 3Ietallurgy ; one 
of Civil Architecture, naval included ; one of Technical Chem- 
istry ; one of Physical Technology and Technical Natural History 
(sections of the proper school of " arts and trades") ; one of 
Agriculture and Forestry ; one of Industrial Ornamental Design 
(Schools of Purely "Fine Art" should, we think, collectively 
form a separate ^^ Art University" disconnected from the dis- 
tinctively '■'■Industrial''^ or Polytechnic one) ; a Commercial one 
of high order; and a Technical Normcd School, for the train- 
ing of professors of general or technical science. Fourth: As 
a collateral group of buildings, each to be as far as possible an 
architectural model, there should be the TJeneral Museum and 
Assembly Hall, the General Library, the Chapel and Observa- 
tory. Fifth: The plan should include Professors' residences and 
Students' homes, the latter to accommodate six to twelve 
persons each, with the householder's family ; a gymnasium, and 
the requisite lodges. Also, in respect to grounds, they should 
be ample enough to embrace, wood, lawn, ground for manly 
field games; a botannical garden, and arborctiun ; and a park 
and pond for animals. 

Lastly, the buildings of the technical schools, should include 
the various laboratories, cabinets, scientific society rooms, appa- 
ratus and work rooms, appropriate to their uses. 

It would be easy to add the outline of a simple plan of dis- 
tribution for all the foregoing structures, by which the essential 
unity of the entire establishment should be elegantly, as well 
as visilfly, expressed in the very arrangement of its material 
components. But we forbear, and pass on to consider briefly 
the subject of the Endowment of Polytechnic Schools. Col- 
leges are quite generally, and not incorrectly, regarded as 
existing for the general intellectual, and, incidentally at least, 
for the moral good of the entire country. They exist- for this 
end more than for any merely private, especially any pecuniary, 



57 

good of their members. Hence they are treated as having a 
recognized claim upon the wealthy liberality of the country, 
and are very often quite largely and cheerfully endowed, as 
may be seen by the frequent large donations to them, reported 
in the newspapers at " commencement " times. 

Professional Schools, however, especially those of Law and 
Medicine, while existing in a very high sense for the general 
good, exist, to a greater comparative extent than colleges, for 
the immediate pecuniary benefit of their members. They are, 
therefore, except Theological schools, less generally and liber- 
ally endowed, and more supported by current tuition receipts. 
But the exception shows that a school should not go unendowed 
merely because a professional one. Let us, then, examine the 
chairas of Polytechnic Schools in reference to this question of 
endowment. 

We should confess the impropriety of publishing, here, defin- 
ite statistics as to the endowments of the schools given in the 
Table in Section I, but it may be said, in general terms, that 
they vary, from sums too small to name, up to $50,000, 
$100,000, $250,000, $750,000, $1,000,000, and upwards. And 
the life of the institutions, thus variously conditioned, may be 
supposed to vary correspondingly, from that of a dry and wiry 
cedar growing in a cleft of a rock, drawing support from every- 
where but the immediate place of its growth, to the spreading 
luxuriance of willows by the water courses. But, seriously, 
the Polytechnic Schools provide a r^ady entrance to lucrative 
positions for their graduates. Still, the labors of those gradu- 
ates tend directly and powerfully to increase the wealth of the 
nation^ by developing its mineral resources; by opening up 
avenues of inter-communication, as in railroads, canals, and 
river and harbor improvements ; by adding to its mechanical 
appliances ; and by the increased production of articles of com- 
merce derived by application of Industrial Physics, Chemistry, 
and Natural History to many arts and trades. On the other 
hand, the studies of Polytechnic Schools, being largely mate- 
rial, require elaborate material appliances for their most successful 
prosecidion; Models, Instruments, Apparatus, Cabinets, Botani- 
8 



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58 

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cal Gardens, and Scientific Libraries, with numerous Diagrams, 

Illustrative Drawings, and Charts. They thus have a two-fold 

claim to a liberal endowment, at least with funds to equip 

them handsomely with these necessary material appliances, if 

not with endowed professorial chairs. 

But there is another fund which Polytechnic Schools especi- 
ally need, viz: a publication fund. Being partly, at least, a 
unique class of schools, their text-books can often best be pre- 
pared by their own professors. The cost of making such books 
is necessarily great, and their sale of necessity relatively small. 
Hence, as it is by no means an unknown custom, such works 
should be published, in part certainly, from a fund for the 
purpose. 

We here, though rather abruptly, close, considering that, if 
these Notes have not failed of their immediate object, they have 
justified their title page, in that they have shown that Poly- 
technic Schools are, in their nature, truly professional ; that 
t\\Q\x: position is, provisionally, and in part, one of compromise 
with their ideal condition ; that their aim is, to attain the 
everywhere undisputed rank of fully professional schools ; and 
that their ivants are, adequate preparatory schools, (colleges) 
which, in turn should have previous academy training courses 
of general science; and material detachment from collegiate 
and professional schools of the humanistic type — -not, of courses 
in any narrow exclusiveness of spirit, but as a matter of expe- 
diency. Our work thus done, we only add a word of ancient tes- 
timony to the impossibility of knowing the whole of anything, 
much less, of everything, and hence, to the propriety of the 
recognized double line of learned pursuit, humanistic, and 
polytechnic, which we have advocated. In this testimony, the 
great regal example of the polytechnic learning and practice 
of old, who says, " I gave my heart to search out by wisdom 
concerning all things that are done under heaven," and, " I 
made me great works," declares : 

" He hath made everything beautiful in his time : also He hath 
set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work 
that God makethfrom theheginning to the end." 



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